Court announces first sentence under new anti-rape laws

Hoshiarpur: In the first sentence under new anti-rape laws, two men were given life imprisonment by a court here for raping a five-year-old girl. Additional Sessions Judge J S Bhinder yesterday awarded the punishment to Daljit Singh and Amarjit Singh Bittu under the amended section 376-D of the IPC.

The judge gave both men an additional sentence of five years under Section 9 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and directed them to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 each. In case they fail to pay the fine, they will have to serve another six months in jail. All sentences will run concurrently.

Gangrape protests in Delhi. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost.

This is stated to be the first judgement under the amended section 376 D of the IPC. According to the prosecution, in February, a woman from Ibrhahimpur village complained that her 5-year-old daughter was missing.

She and her two children were staying at her parent's home after she separated from her husband. After a massive search, the woman found her daughter in Daljit Singh's house. She caught Singh and Bittu in a compromising compromising with the child. The accused pleaded innocence claiming there was no penetration which showed that they had not raped the child.

However, semen samples found on the clothes of the child confirmed the charge of rape.